Failure in Sports

When the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro 2016 were over, the topic “failure” was discussed everywhere. When we think about the meaning of failure in sports, we of course think of teams, athletes, coaches, countries, federations, or clubs. Sports is all about winning and losing. It’s about satisfaction or frustration. It’s about ups and downs. It’s about success or failure! The Soccer World Cup 2006 in Germany was a good example of “failure”! What a torture, what a disaster to have lost to Italy in the semi-final of the tournament. All of us felt hurt. We just could not believe it. We had all failed, not only our team. This experience is emotionally hard to explain. Germany was right on target to become the new world champion. There was no doubt. Afterwards, we all needed weeks to overcome the loss to Italy. Another “virus of euphoria” accompanied us during the soccer world cup in 2014 in Brazil. This time it was the opposite. We did not fail! We all suddenly were champions—the players, the coaches, the fans and the country. What a feeling! Success and failure in sports has to do with emotions. We all don’t like it, but it is part of the game. Failure is the misery part of the game, but necessary to increase our performance and perhaps to help us become great (Powell S. Souled out? How blacks are winning. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 2008). Failure forms personalities, competencies and character. Failure is a life experience, challenge it and you will get the chance to become someone special. Michael Jordan once said: “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I have been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” The career of Michael Jordan was an outstanding one. But what does it all mean when the lights are off, when the time is over, when nobody wants to have an interview anymore? We are going to describe the meaning and the consequences of failure in sports for athletes and coaches, federations and clubs. We do not intend to examine all the phenomena of failure in detail, but we will discuss failure and how to deal with it. Furthermore, we will discuss what failure means for the stakeholders in the context of high-performance sports.